


Heroes, Has-Beens, and Home

by demisms



Series: you never know how strong you are until strong is the only choice you have [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Genderbending, Rule 63, funeral fic, jaz is a boy, raleigh is a girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 07:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2499311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demisms/pseuds/demisms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one with seething siblings, and no real resolution.</p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <br/>
    <i>Raleigh glances longingly at the seat, makes no attempt to hide how little she wants to be having this conversation. Her balance falters, and she leans on the closest chair to her like that's going to help this any more bearable. Of course, just beyond that seat she's eyeing is a rich oak coffin draped in the American flag, and Raleigh sucks in a pained breath.</i>
  </p>
  <p> </p>
  <p>    <i>"It's empty, you know.”</i><br/></p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Heroes, Has-Beens, and Home

**Author's Note:**

> based pretty directly on a roleplay thread i had with my lovely boo mel. hopefully it doesn't read too choppy, i tried to smooth it out.

Jaz wears his leather jacket to the funeral because he doesn’t actually _own anything_ decent like a suit jacket. Can’t afford it. He’d rather eat than have a suit, but he thinks Yancy wouldn’t have cared either way. He’s there, isn’t he? At another funeral for a member of his family. He’s barely twenty and the Beckets have gone from five to two, who might as well be strangers. 

He gets it, or so he says — why they wanted to be Rangers. It’s a big robot and it’s a chance to be heroes, and it’s something that requires you to live out of someone’s pocket. It’s practically made for Yancy and Raleigh. But just because he understands (sort of) doesn’t mean he likes them any better. Doesn’t mean that they went their way and he went his and that’s just _life_ and good, you two save the world, he’s going to work a shitty job and struggle _just to eat_. It’s fine. It’s whatever.

Except… Yancy dies. Except the last thing Jaz ever said to him was to tell him to fuck off, go to hell, and then he told Raleigh to _shut the fuck up, stop humming that song_ , and then he’d left. He left before they left him because it’s always been Yancy and Raleigh, and he refused to be the kid brother they left behind anymore. Jaz hears about it on the news. _Raleigh_ hasn’t actually said a word to him but honestly? Looking at her now, he’s a little surprised that she’s _standing_. And he hates that he actually feels a little sorry for her.

“Hey, Raleigh.”

Raleigh Becket, Ranger No. R-RBEC_122.21-B, is discharged from the Pan Pacific Defense Corps three days after she, and the mangled, brutalized carcass of Gipsy Danger stumble onto the shores of Anchorage. She can't walk, and is served her paperwork in a Shatterdome hospital bed by a grim looking Marshal Pentecost. Stamped across the front of the page, under the reason for discharge, is INSUBORDINATION in neat typeface. Stapled to the back of the packet are her various offenses, including but not limited to the rescue of the fishing boat. Her medical history is included as well, with the most recent addendum at the bottom: severe nerve damage in left arm. She's ruined, but still interesting. The doctors want her in an MRI 24/7, baffled and delighted by the chance to run scans on someone's ability to pilot solo after the loss of the Drift — it hadn't been an option since Stacker Pentecost in 2016.

The same year she and Yancy graduated the academy.

She refuses the tests — tells them to go fuck themselves, actually — and the offered survivors benefits (she didn't survive, not really; Yancy didn't, and she didn't deserve to have either), and once she's better, she leaves. 

The only bonus about an empty coffin is that they can hold the funeral at any point. No body, no rot. It's a broadcasted event, a national tragedy deserves a chance to nationally mourn. There are cameras and it's a struggle not to vomit in front of them. It's been two weeks, but Raleigh still looks like she just crawled out of that crushed conn-pod. She can't sleep, can't eat. The doctors want to keep her one more day, but she'd insisted after the funeral she was leaving. It was requested that she wear the uniform one more time, and when she acquiesces — _Yancy would have done it_ — it's delivered to her with a black band around the arm. 

It looks too big on her at the funeral. The slight limp is unbecoming, too. Nothing looks right; she's not a cocky kid anymore, and while the photographers are perplexed in the bare few seconds they're allowed to snap pictures before they're shoo'ed, she doesn't care — it wasn't like their lens flare could capture the ghost of her brother anyway. 

They don't make her stand the whole time, didn't ask her to fire the symbolic rifle. She's got a seat at the very front of the amassed audience, and is making her way there with hunched shoulders and haunted eyes when she sees him. It's a punch in the sternum, a visceral double-take because — call it drift hangover, call it genetics — for a terrible, cruel moment she'd thought she'd seen their elder brother again. 

Which means she's just plain _disappointed_ (heartbreak) when it's Jaz. It shows, even if she doesn't want it to. 

"Hey Jaz" Her voice is harsh from disuse; she's no longer one for loud, bawdy conversations and celebrating. Now she mostly shakes or nods her head, screams or cries. For once, Raleigh's dry eyed, and it makes her feel awful, to have out-mourned someone to the point she couldn't even cry at their funeral. There's a slight cough to clear her throat, but it doesn't jump start the waterworks. 

"I didn't know you were coming.”

It doesn't escape him, the look that crosses her face, the one that flits so quickly from hope to disappointment and it's so hard, no it's impossible to not immediately go on the defensive. If five seconds ago, he was feeling sorry for her, he's suddenly reminded why he pushes them both away in the first place. It was self defense, protecting himself against the very real fact that he's not his siblings favorite, and he never will be. 

Jaz stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets, so that she can't see him curl his fingers into fists and if his entire being screams defensive and wary at her, then well. He doesn't really think she'll notice. _And fuck her if she does._

"He was my brother too.”

She'd hurt his feelings, Raleigh belatedly realizes. And she _cares_ , or at least knows she _should care,_ but is more surprised that she had the ability to do that anymore. There's room for apologies, she knows the word _sorry_ , but rebuilding long burnt bridges is something she couldn't care less about attempting right now — not when the firmest bridge to another human being she'd ever known had been ripped away from her and there's still a gaping bridge in her architecture. 

What was the point, anyway? It's not like this brother'd understand what it meant; to drift, to fight kaiju, to do _anything._

_So fuck you, too, Jaz._

"Yeah, I know. I just hadn't heard from you in a while.”

She's not got the capacity for defensive right now, simply letting his aggravation wash over her and returning unflappable impassivity (that, in time, will grow to become a bitter dislike for a basic human connections and drive her to working the solitude of working the anti-kaiju wall).

It frustrates him (and hurts, a lot actually) that she doesn't really fight back. Or seem to care. Maybe he's not trying very hard to hide the fact that he's mad at her, in that way that someone acts fine, very poorly to get people to notice. To make them _ask_ what's wrong. He won't be the one to make the first step, to ask for help and comfort. He wants it offered to him and anything else is just begging for pity and that makes him sick. It's like arguing with a wall. Throwing himself against it over and over, expecting it to break but it never does. He's the only one that cracks.

"Yeah, I've been busy.” Not busy like her. Jaz isn't trying to save the world, he's just trying to make it to tomorrow. Which —  
does that even matter now? Weren't the Jaegers supposed to save them, not fall themselves? Since when do the kaiju fight back like that?

"Working, you know. Trying to pay rent and eat and stuff like that.”

"Where do you —“ She has to clear her throat, and uses the moment to look anywhere but at him. "— um, where are you workin' now?"

Should it hurt to remember that she knows absolutely nothing about her little brother's life right now? Hasn't for a good handful of years? It feels wrong. She knew everything about Yancy and then to come upon someone she doesn't know nearly as well but _should…_

She'd really just like the service to start so they have to sit down and not talk.

Jaz is of a similar mind as she, because he's got a good place picked out in the back already, it might be his brother's funeral but he has no interest in being in the front lines for this, shying away from that extra attention out of instinct and self preservation. They chose to be rockstars and public figures and he's not interested in that at all.

"There's this deli by where I live. And I pick up shifts at a bar whenever I can. Nothing glamorous.”

"That's — good. That sounds good."

That actually sounds incredibly lame, nothing on parr with what she and Yancy had done. If there was a 50/50 chance of any one kid becoming a hero, it was incredibly unlikely to hit one family three times over. One kid had to be the one that settled for something less; Raleigh's not even sure if Jaz would have succeeded in the Jaeger program if they had dragged him there with them, so it was good he was at least seemingly content with what little he was doing.

And while the Beckets beat the odds at hero children, they didn't really exceed them at surviving. So now there was one dead Becket kid, one working dead end jobs, and one a washed up has-been with a neat prescription for PTSD and a lot of issues.

Raleigh glances longingly at the seat, makes no attempt to hide how little she wants to be having this conversation. Her balance falters, and she leans on the closest chair to her like that's going to help this any more bearable. Of course, just beyond that seat she's eyeing is a rich oak coffin draped in the American flag, and Raleigh sucks in a pained breath.

"It's empty, you know.”

Jaz twitches like he's going to catch her if she falls when she falters for a moment and he's glad that she doesn't fall but only because a good part of him wants to just leave her there on the ground if it did happen and he's not entirely sure he'd do the right and polite thing and help her back to her feet. Maybe he really would just turn and walk away from her, leave her down on the ground and see how she liked it. 

He really doesn't want to find out what he'd do. But thank God Raleigh is lightening the mood with something else.

"I figured. Given what the news said about what happened. At least there's not two right?” _Right?_ It's better to have one of them survive, right? Maybe it's what Yancy would've wanted because he was a good brother like that and always looking out for them but it's maybe pretty clear that it's not really what either Jaz nor Raleigh consider better.

"It's usually two."

 _Always two._ What makes her so special — that she retained consciousness and fought off Knifehead, killed him and isn't dying from the toll of piloting Gipsy all on her own. But it's a tough thing to be special for, and her survivors guilt is getting exponentially worse every time someone reminds her of it. 

Those eyes she'd thought were so dried out start to prickle with phantom tears, and even if there's none to fall, she wipes her sleeve across her face.

“It's _usually_ —" Ah, the pathetic voice crack. The way she inhales sounds like something broken is rattling around in her chest. "I don't — I don't know of they want me to say something or if I'm just supposed to sit there.”

Jaz knows that it's supposed to be two. That pilots go down together, the media loves playing that up and can't they be mad at Yancy for dying together? Maybe not. Whatever, he’s silently begging Raleigh not to cry, because that would make him extremely uncomfortable, and he is pretty much already at his limit for that dozy. His sober limit anyway; if he had a flask in his pocket then he could handle, like, fifteen minutes of her tears. 

"Does it matter? You don't have to if you don't want to.”

Raleigh’d like to leave this conversation. Now. Right now. Right fucking now.

"I feel like I should.” _Would Yancy want me to?_ "I just don't know what to say.”

Jaz shifts his weight, trying badly to hide the flash of irritation he has towards her. Why did she _even say anything_ if she was just going to talk over him? And why is he even a little surprised, since that's their childhood all over again. Nice to know that old habits never die and that years of isolation don't change what really matters with family. 

"Are you asking for help or telling me to shut up?”

"I don't —“ _know_ , that’s the problem. And while she might have been fishing for advice, he's not the right person to go sniffing around for sympathy and guidance. That'd been a mistake, and now her back is stiffening and her lips thinning.

"Nevermind. I'm just going to — I'm going to sit down.”

“Yeah.” Jaz doesn't bother to stop her. There's a flash of guilt, and obligation, like this is his sister and she's hurting and he should try to help. He just _can’t_. That circuit is broken in his head, there's nothing he wants to say to her that would help and it'd be pointless to try the scripted _it'll be alright_ because it clearly is not going to be okay. "I've got a seat in the back. I'll see you after.”

No he won’t.

"Yeah. It was nice to see you.”

Except it wasn’t.

And they both know that, just like they both know that this is going to be a goodbye. 

So raleigh nods. They've exchanged meaningless words and she's going to stiffly half-limp, half-walk to her assigned seat now; going to pointedly not think about Jaz because it's easier to be alone than have to deal with a brother that's not the one who she still hears screaming in her head. She has little care for the youngest of them, not when his problems could never compare to the pain Yancy'd felt when dying, and all that she felt now.

It's selfish.

Pentecost doesn't ask her to speak. No one asks her to speak, and that's good. No one even expects her to stay after the ceremony, and she doesn't say goodbye to anyone or even look for her little brother.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos & comments much appreciated!


End file.
